Let's See Your Garages...

[ptgb]

Embarking on a project I have wanted to do for 10 years.






I am having built a 24'x32' garage (largest zoning will allow), with doors on the 24' side (32' deep). There will be one vehicle inside and the rest is dedicated to the motorcycles. Will have a concrete floor and 10' ceilings, electric, gas heat, cable, CAT6 and eventually water.

Looking for ideas from, and photos of your garage and or workshops as I am planning the layout. Right now, plan to have the back wall with at least a 12'-16' workbench with tool chests underneath, a couple floor cabinets, and a couple wall cabinets. An MC table lift will come in the Spring.

Let's hear your ideas for what you have done and what you would have done different...

[Rams]

Although I have a decent shop/garage, all I'm gonna say is, I don't care how big you build it, it won't be big enough.  Can you put a lean to on each side?  I guarantee within a few years, you'll want more room.

Edit:  If you can't go wider or longer, can you go up?  Go two story if you can, I speak from experience.  Think  Storage, you'll be glad you did.

[jer0177]

I recommend running multiple cat6 runs - its so much easier to do all at the same time, and I didn't see a cat3 for landline (if you don't have one, there may be a need for one down the road), and one of the cat6's can be used in place of 2 cat3's.  Maybe even a fiber optic line.

Always think forward.

Any thoughts about putting in a lift for the cage?  If planning one, remember the slab will need to be thicker (8") where that mounts.  10' ceiling would work nicely for a twin post lift.

Overplan for lights.  Nothing more frustrating than not being able to see what you're doing.

How about your air compressor?  Will it be somewhere that will muffle the noise so you can still chat comfortably while it's running? Hard lines plumbed for it instead of running hoses all over creation.

Instahot for the eventual water.  

Exhaust fan up high to remove noxious fumes.  Ceiling hoist possibly on a trolley.

Loft storage above the area that doesn't need 10' ceiling.

These are all ideas for my eventual shop...

Edit: While you'll get some amazing "Ah-ha" ideas here, I just found a site you could probably spend another 10 years reading for more - http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/index.php - and I've seen other forums for garage setup and the likes, google's failing me now though.

Edit 2: did find this one buried in the other forum:  http://www.frets.com/HomeShopTech/ShopTips/tiplist.html

[shortleg]

  Might want to consider being able to have lift for
bike set sunk into the slab so you drive on to it, then raise it.
It also will be out of the way.
        Shortleg[Dave]

[Rams]

Always think forward.

Any thoughts about putting in a lift for the cage?  If planning one, remember the slab will need to be thicker (8") where that mounts.  10' ceiling would work nicely for a twin post lift.

Overplan for lights.  Nothing more frustrating than not being able to see what you're doing.

How about your air compressor?  Will it be somewhere that will muffle the noise so you can still chat comfortably while it's running? Hard lines plumbed for it instead of running hoses all over creation.

Instahot for the eventual water.  

Exhaust fan up high to remove noxious fumes.  Ceiling hoist possibly on a trolley.

Loft storage above the area that doesn't need 10' ceiling.

I agree with everything listed here but, I do question the 10' ceiling, to fit my car lift in, I had to go 12' ceilings.  Other wise, the top of the posts would have been between the joyces limiting how high the vehicle could go up.  I'm 6' tall so when I work on my vehicles, I want them up in the air so I don't have to stoop to be under them.   Also consider the type of auto lift you want, I went with a two post with the crossing supports and cables running at  the top of the lift, some folks get them with that at the bottom and I think that's just a trip hazard waiting to happen.  I also put a steep roof, as I remember it's an 10/12 pitch.   The greater the pitch, the more headroom you've got up there.  Don't forget access to that loft storage, I put in stairs, I didn't want to have to use ladders carrying something while ascending or descending from the storage loft.  

Ventilation is extremely important.  Also, if you're going to heat/cool, don't forget to think about insulation.  

Another thing I did was wall sockets, every one in my shop is at 4' height.  I did that because I know how stuff gets piled up against the walls during a project and hate having to move things to find and electrical outlet.  Always consider shelving before you put anything on or in the wall.

For air, consider having at least two or more wall mounted or ceiling mounted places for hose connections with hose reels already mounted.   Additionally, for any welding that you may do, go ahead and run 220 plugs to any potential welding area and to the front of the building (Inside).  You may have to take that mig welder outside for some project and extension cables capable of carrying that much current are expensive.  I have three locations in my shop with a 25' welding extension cable.  I can take my mig anywhere I want to in the shop and outside should the need occur.  Lots more idea and recommendations but, I gotta go to work.  BBL.

[Varmintmist]

Radient heat in the floor. You have to put everything you plan on drilling into the concrete in NOW but it is soooooo nice to be working on a concrete slab that is 72f in the winter.

+2 on storage. Go for a loft, at least 1/2 the building for oil, filters, screws nuts bolts, whatever. You can also put your compressor up there and plumb down. One less thing in the way.

Figure for 2x the workbench you are planning, and built it three times heavier than you can imagine you would ever use.

[Spirited-6]

FLOOR DRAIN, don`t forget a floor drain. I built a 24 x 24 years ago and used peg board instead of dry wall to line the walls, painted white. Four 8 ft. lights plus the white walls almost needed sun glasses. The drain was in the center of slope floor , made it handy to hose out and let snow melt off cars.

[Dr Bobs Patient]

Double up on the CAT6 so yo can put in a bunch of IP cameras that will stream live over the internet so we can watch! 

[old2soon]

Free standing drill press and free standing bench grinder. You bench mount it you run out of realestate fast. And that suggestion to build extremely heavy duty on work bench OH YEAH. And where you live with fall and winter-you just won't believe how much crap and crud is drug in by the vehicle tires. While 24' X 32' sounds big at the outset it shrinks quicker than you thought possible. 768 square feet will fill rather fast. Sometimes those zoning laws make little or zero sense. But i do understand the need for them-sometimes. Good luck with your project and keep us updated as it progresses please. RIDE SAFE.

[hubcapsc]

Don't laugh, I can take my garage with me on trips! 



-Mike

[Warlock]

Here's the front of my shop/garage

david

[Gryphon Rider]

I have a 24W x 30D garage with poorly planned electrical done by a previous owner, who didn't pull a permit.  I plan on eventually pulling down all the drywall (it wasn't taped), pulling a permit, and redoing all the electrical.  Here are some ideas I plan on implementing:

• Exterior lights on ALL sides
• Provision for security cameras
• Telephone, data, and coaxial cables
• Interior lights on either side of the overhead door at head height, so I can see inside my car trunk when the overhead door is open.  These will have 4-way switches beside each light and at the man door to the house
• 240V receptacles at each corner
• Reed switch at the overhead door with lights inside my house indicating if the door is open or shut.  There have been a couple of times when my neighbor rang my doorbell to tell me my garage was open to the lane when it probably shouldn't be.

[henry 008]

here's mine pete!



lol! this was a few years ago when i was single, living with just my middle son.  think we had enough toys?   

[Titan]

When I built my garage, I had no plans other than for a place to park my vehicles. I'm not much of a mechanic so I didn't design it to be a workshop. It does have air conditioning, a ceiling fan, is well insulated, has running water and a water heater. I didn't heat it because we don't usually have a lot of cold weather (SC) and I can use a small space heater if I need to. The floor has an epoxy coating. There are 2 windows on one side and one on the other for cross ventilation and a man door on the side nearest the house. I designed it to have plenty of room to park the Valk and to have a closed storage room. I have electrical outlets all the way around the room and more electronic security than most people's houses. It also alerts me inside the house when the garage door is open and I can control the door and the security system from the house.

I should have installed more overhead lighting but I thought I had enough. But I have acquired additional fixtures that are due to go up shortly.

Oh, the decorations on the wall are the wife's doings.

[Chrisj CMA]

This is now the family room.  However, it used to be the garage.  It is none the less the home of our Valkyrie, trailer and tools....right here next to the bookcase and 7 feet away from me right now as I type this.

[bscrive]

If you are thinking of heating the garage with a radiant tube heater, I would suggest you go with a 12' ceiling or 10' walls and scissor trusses. 
I agree with the guys who suggest putting a second floor on.  You can get trusses that will incorporate a second floor in them (Room in Attic). 

http://www.maplevalleytruss.com/config.htm

I built a 26'x30' garage attached to my existing 16'x24' garage.  I still don't have enough space.  thinking of building a separate garage behind the house that is 24'x24' to house all the stuff I don't use each season.

Have fun

[KY,Dave (AKA Misunderstood)]

12 by 24........Trust all those that say build it as big as you can. 

[sugerbear]

mine is an enclosed 1 car carport.

would LOVE to have a 24 X 30.

[Hoser]

My man cave is full, wish it was larger.  Hoser

[Jess Tolbirt]

mine is 26 by 26 and i just had to build Bev a 10 by 13 tanning room inside of it, so i lost a little...

[Crazy Miles]

16 x 24 attached to the house, I wish it was a 2 car!         

[BF]

Man.....you guys with the huge garages.  Makin' me jealous.   

I've just got a little one car garage that I can bairly fit my Valk and all of my other junk into. 

[cookiedough]

back when I was younger and stupider  (is that even a word?),   we built our basic ranch home with a 2 car 20x24 standard attached garage at the young age of 23.  Our builder really pushed us back in 1993 to build a 3 car attached garage taking up as much side to side space as possible on our lot.  Back then, no one had 3 car garages and at the time, all we had was a small and mid sized car, no toys or kids.  Well,  near 20 years later,  I really need a 4 car garage having 3 ATV's, 3 fishing boats, 1 scanoe (like a canoe), full sized pickup with medium sized SUV, and of course the Valk and tons of bicycles and kids junk.  Our full length unfinished 24x46' long basement is a joke.  WE can walk down there but stuff is all over the place between kids stuff and my ATV and fishing stuff.  Glad we went with a full sized ranch home vs. a bi-level to get a fully unfinished basement to store stuff since ranch homes have a bigger basement than most all other types of homes.   

So, go as big as you can since you never can go too big.  Totally amazes me how much crap one can accumulate in 20+ years.  My parents home is almost like a hoarder show on TV.  My brother used to live upstairs in the loft being about 12'x 30' A-frame upstairs.  After we both moved out over 20+ years ago,  my parents somehow tranformed the entire upstairs full of items stacked to the ceiling you cannot even walk up the stairs or anywhere up there AT ALL -- Not looking forward to the day probably in the next 10-15 years or so when we have to sell the house and first clean up all the junk inside.  Best to do an auction I guess?????

[DIGGER]

[Black Dog]

Wow Digger 

Shawing!

Black Dog

[Dave Ritsema]

I built the largest that would fit on my lot when we built the house in 1999. It is 25 x 38. Had the drywall guys finish it just like the inside of the house. Insulated, heated, cable TV, hot and cold water. One thing I am very glad I did was use oversize garage doors. The main door is 18 wide by 8 high and the small door is 9 wide by 8 high. Those few extra feet sure help.

Here is a shot the year we finished it.


A few interior shots.



And the most recent shot.



As others have said, no matter how big you build it, you will always wish you had more.

[DIGGER]

Wow Digger 

Shawing!

Black Dog

built my garage in 2009 and then this year I added the 27' awning.......with the help of my 2 sons.......

[custom1]

+1 on the www.Garagejournal.com .  I got most of the ideas for mine from there. Same screen name.  I don't have any recent pics, but here are a few from when it was being built. Been working on it off and on for the last 4 or 5 years.   
28x35 cause if I stayed under 1000 sq ft it was exempt from inspections. Hip roof to match the house. 12' ceiling. Pex tubing in the floor for radiant heat in the future. Doors are almost 11' tall, but my MH still won't fit.   It's all insulated and dry walled. Painted white inside with twelve 8' lights on 6 switches. I rarely need to turn them all on. Lots more to do. Since I got the Valk the garage has gone on the back burner.









I have 8 of the cabinets in this pic along the back wall now. Plan on making doors for them soon. Keep as much stuff off the floor as you can.







The inside is a mess right now. I'll have to clean up and get some new pics.

[Jeff K]

Since I have two garages a two car 20 X 20 and a a three door 26 X 36, the smartest thing I did was to install three tubes underground from the garage on the house to the detached garage. I ran power through one, low voltage wire for alarm, tunes, cat 6 through the other and ran an air line through the third. So I can share resources between both of them.

[Momz]

I'm just a poor old city boy.
So my garage reflects my social-economic status.
The cow skull is a bird house and the cable hanging from the top of the door is to keep our dog from killing sparrows when they feed on the worms on the back lawn.

Can't show you the inside,....or I'd have to kill you (and no, it's not a meth lab)

[BF]

My little one car garage from just a few minutes ago.   



Been installing an amp today.  Should get 'er done tomorrow. 

[Patrick]

Geeezzz,,  you ain't seeing mine.. Youz guyz are entirely too neat and clean !!

[FryeVRCCDS0067]

Here's the inside of my new garage & shop. I've already posted pics of the outside a time or two. The shop is still a long way from being organized. The plan is to move the lathe out of it's existing room and into the main shop. Son Andy still has two more manual lathes in storage along with a much bigger rotophase. I picked up a couple of used 3 phase panels complete with breakers. I've got the 300amp panel mounted and being used. It's the one in the pic along with my small rotophase which is all we need for now.

I used conduit and stranded wire throughout. Nearly all the outlets are in square boxes with the right side outlets on different breakers than the left side. That way, if we start blowing breakers at some point we can just shift from the left to right side to load a different breaker.

My welding table was my Dad's workbench. I can remember Dad using it 50 years ago in the basement of the house I grew up in. The large handsaw hanging overhead was my Dad's. The small one he gave to me so I could work beside him when I was little. There is an old "buggy step" hanging there beside the saws. Dad found the buggy step with his metal detector on a forgotten woods road around raccoon lake sometime in the early 70's. Pretty sure I was with him when he found it.

The wood burner I built myself 35 years ago from scrap metal. I didn't have a torch so I cut the metal to size by turning my stick welder up all the way and making a lot of sparks.
http://s1272.photobucket.com/albums/y381/valkhobo/new%20shop/

[f6john]

      Love machine tools, wish I had the knowledge to use them.

[f6john]

    And Dave, you're holding out on us, I need details on the ZR1!

[f6john]

   My garage is an example of what not to do! 28'x40' so the space is nice but no floor drains. Concrete guy was pitiful, I won't go into it, too painful. 200 amp service, so it meets my power requirements, 2 stage compressor, Hobart 180 mig, drill press, ect. No heat, no air, but that's fixable. Worst part for me is the front of the garage faces due west and the wind blows leaves, pine needles, trash, rain, snow right at the doors and of course through the doors when I leave them up. I could go on, but I remember laying in a gravel driveway in my earlier years so it's all good now.

This was after a full day of moving stuff around to try and find a home for everything before winter gets here.







     Still two more full size vehicles have to go in here.

[FryeVRCCDS0067]

   My garage is an example of what not to do! 28'x40' so the space is nice but no floor drains. Concrete guy was pitiful, I won't go into it, too painful. 200 amp service, so it meets my power requirements, 2 stage compressor, Hobart 180 mig, drill press, ect. No heat, no air, but that's fixable. Worst part for me is the front of the garage faces due west and the wind blows leaves, pine needles, trash, rain, snow right at the doors and of course through the doors when I leave them up. I could go on, but I remember laying in a gravel driveway in my earlier years so it's all good now.

This was after a full day of moving stuff around to try and find a home for everything before winter gets here.



     Still two more full size vehicles have to go in here.

Man I like those industrial shelving units. I once installed a 150' long, 4' wide conveyor overhead between two similar but taller and heaver shelving units supported by cross beams between them. Was rock solid.

[hotglue #43]

Here are a few pics of my shop....
The front of the shop


inside the shop



out the back


The doors open north and south and have a nice breeze, and keep it cool...
out the back of the shop, there is a storage building... 26X16, that opens onto the slab apron....  the shop is 25X36.  
and I agree... ya can never build a shop big enough!!!!!
Have 6 ea 20 amp circuits run in the shop, plus 220 circuits for the air comp and others, an electrical plug every 4 ft along each wall on alternating circuits.  6 air outlets, and a 50ft retractable hose reel on each end of the shop.  
 I do my welding and wood cutting on the apron out back.  Have a fab table and all the other stuff out there.  The storage building is full of crap.... but it's good crap... I really need to go through it.....  Ya ..right.... like I would throw something away....LOL

[PharmBoy]

24X44, 9' ceilings, 6" insulated walls, 12" insulated rafters with decked attic, 12' garage door with opener, air conditioned, 2 wall heaters, 2 ceiling fans, 6 eight ft. florescent light fixtures, interior storm shelter (with stool, lavatory, hot water heater, ceiling heat, light & vent).  Interior pictures were taken when it was just finished.  Much more cluttered now with tool chests, storage cabinets, shelving, wood working tools, & air compressor.  I'll get it all straight, clean, & organized in the near future.  I have been way too busy working on bikes (mine and others) to worry about "neet & clean".  This shop has been a dream of mine for many, many years.  Hopefully I'll have several more years to enjoy it.  Got to go!  I have another truck stack to install...Jim

[vanagon40]

I use the Dan Meyer approach.  This was over 5 years ago and it looks the same (or worse) today.  Some of the same junk is still in the same place.




This is Dan Meyer's: